Tremendous response to ‘Fetch the Engine!’

People have been wonderfully kind in lending us objects to include in our current exhibition and a stream of retired firefighters have been coming in and helping us identify people in photographs.

Loans have included a set of 50 John Player cigarette cards showing 1930s fire fighting appliances (a few of them illustrated above),  a WW2 fire axe from the Auxiliary Fire Service,  a wonderful brass firehose nozzle from the 1920s or 1930s (shaped in such a way that it delivered a very strong, narrow jet of water), a scrap book containing photos of a particularly large local fire in 1992, an amazingly ornate and somewhat dented brass helmet (with a splendid crest and a double axe motif on the front), and a modern firefighter’s kit, mainly brown and yellow, (introduced in the Avon Fire and Rescue Service in 2011 and technologically a big improvement on the familiar dark blue uniforms).

The exhibition has generated a great deal of interest, not least from those who have served as firefighters themselves, and we are learning  a lot from the information local residents are bringing in.

Sometimes, there are anecdotes, like the man who said he remembered being in a classroom near the fire station.  When the fire station bell sounded, that was the cue for him to put his hand up, asking ‘to be excused’, so that he could run and watch the fire engine emerge!

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the exhibition.  Keep those stories coming!